The moving ANNE FRANKLet Me Be Myself touring exhibition starts today in Fremantle at the Woolstores Shopping Centre and should not be missed.

Anne Frank’s story is a very sad one about a young Jewish girl who had to hide with her family in a secret annex of a house in Amsterdam during Hitler’s nazi regime and German occupation of the Netherlands during Worldwar II.

While they were hiding Anne wrote a beautiful diary, but sadly after two years she and her family were discovered and deported to concentration camps. From the eight people only father Otto Frank survived.

Intolerance to other people’s religion, culture and race should never be accepted.

The calls by politicians and members of the public to ban Muslim women in Australia from wearing the burqa and other face-covering headwear, shows that we are losing the war against terrorism. Zealots like the Taliban tell women in their countries what not to wear, that they can’t have an education or listen to music, so does Australia really want to become like that?

The price for freedom can never be the loss of freedom. Fear and ignorance should not dictate our actions against minority groups. Hitler successfully targeted, imprisoned, tortured and killed minority groups and forced them to wear a big star on their clothing so everyone could see who the enemy of the Third Reich was, does Australia want to do that to Muslims, most of who were born in Australia?

We would never target all Catholics and single them out because hundreds of their priests around the world have raped young children. We accept that a few criminals are at work and that not every Catholic is a paedophile and a danger to our children, so why are Muslims suddenly the target of abuse and the reason for Australia’s paranoia? We don’t accuse the Jews around the world for being fascist just because Israel behaves that way against Palestinians, so why do Muslims have to justify who they are and prove they are part of ‘Team Australia’? How many Christians living in Australia were born overseas. Should they also justify their Australianess?

There is no religion I know off that is based on hatred for others. Islam, like Christianity, Baha’I, Buddhism, etc. teaches compassion, love, empathy. The holy books of the world don’t tell us to go and slaughter innocent people, engage in terrorism and fear, and to cowardly behead western journalists and foreign aid workers. Our fear for Islam is unfounded, because the Islamic State and Taliban fundamentalist don’t represent what Islam stands for.

The reaction by many Australians is basically a racist one. If Muslims were white Anglo-Saxon they would not be subjected to the ignorant idiocy of a politician like Jacqui Lambie, but since many Muslims have a darker skin colour they are a threat to Australia. What a load of rubbish!

May I remind all of us that the Australian Constitution of 1901 prohibits the Commonwealth Government from interfering with the freedom of religion, but that is what speaker Bronwyn Bishop is introducing in Federal Parliament.

Australians need to take a chill pill and start actually living the urban myth of fair-go and freedom. We do not need more nanny-state laws and more restrictions of our liberties. What we need to do instead is show support for our Australian Muslims, and treat them as one of us, because that is what they are.

My Dutch forebears disgracefully introduced Apartheid to South Africa. Do we want to start in Australia with signs stating White Christians Only and ban Muslim women from attending the general public gallery in Parliament House in Canberra. I think not!

Maybe it is time for a new social media forum- FAITHBOOK- where people of different religions can communicate and get to know each other better. It might get rid of a lot of the ignorant nonsense we hear and read about Islam.

As someone who lived in Europe for the first 33 years of my life and who heard the very many awful stories about Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany I am outraged to see that the Australian Wicked Vans company is hiring out a 4×4 with a portrait of Hitler painted on it.

According to a Facebook post this car drives throughout Australia with tourists in it and somehow pokes fun at this disgraceful episode in history. That is not acceptable and this four wheel drive needs to be ordederd off the road by our authorities. It is insensitive to the plight of the thousands of Jewish people who suffered and died in concentration camps and to all those countries who had to suffer the brutality of German occupation during World War II. The Netherlands was one of those and my parents had to endure German occupancy.

It is wrong to think there is anything funny about Adolf Hitler, Nazi Germany or any war. This is extremely bad taste Wicked!